by Ms, Irene Indriasari
Getting the chance to present in an international seminar abroad
for the first time was quite a big burden – for me and Ms. Nina. Last 28 and 29
of May, we had to travel to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia to present our papers in
MELTA (Malaysian English Teaching Association). Both of us had neither been to
Malaysia before, nor had presented in an international seminar abroad. Thus
this would be our very first experience.
We arrived at 9pm, receiving a very
good courtesy from a Malaysian bought us shuttle ticket to our hotel knowing
that we were strangers in his country. We met our friend, Mr. Eric Bray – an
American living and teaching in Japan. Roaming KL at 10:30 pm, we headed to
Bukit Bintang- the busiest district of KL. We were amazed watching people were
still busy strolling around the streets as if it was 7 o’clock in Semarang. We
had nice dinner in a restaurant called “The ship” – waiters dressed like
captains and sailors – of course we had scrumptious free seafood as Eric paid
for our dinner.
The conference was held in a lavish
five star hotel, Sunway Putra or the Legend hotel. The red carpet signified the
presence of a royal. HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah bt Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah gave
her inspiring royal speech – quoted by many presenters later in parallel
sessions. The part I remember most was
when she emphasized the importance of English for Malaysian youngsters thus
they won’t be the laughing stock for international community as their
predecessors. One of the example was the translation in the Malaysian official
website for “pakaian yang mencolok mata” into “the clothes that poke eyes”-
thanks to translation software. She also
stressed the importance of teaching the learners of English “critical thinking,
thus we don’t teach “This is a chair” only but beyond that “Why is the chair
there?”
We met interesting people on day 1.
I attended a session by an Indonesian presenter, a junior high school teacher
from Bandung. She was so confident with her presentation about environment
education. I also met Mr. Roger Palmer – our old friend who attended the
seminar on behalf of Pearson. Mind you, He was the keynote speaker in the
previous LIA Semarang Candi International workshop in February 2012. He
introduced us to JALT president (The Japan Association for Languange Teaching),
Mr. Kevin Cleary. We had tea and cake chosen by Mr. Cleary. It was delicious
and we had a very nice conversation on the teacher for teacher program, and how
Mr. Cleary – who actually took up accounting as his major in university ended
up in teaching English. Indeed an international seminar is the perfect place
for us to develop our network.
The second day was tense for us,
because early in the morning, the very first slot was our show. Ms. Nina and Mr.
Eric Bray presented their Indonesia- Japan cultural exchange on Facebook, and I
had a workshop on applying Competence Autonomy and Relatedness in combining
graphic organizers and cooperative learning to enhance students’ comprehension.
My workshop was attended by multirace of teachers – as Malaysia is a melting
pot of Malay, Indian and Chinese. We shared our experience and we did the
workshop so lively. They were wonderful audience and doers. In short, our
presentation and workshop were successful, thanks to long preparation and
exercise.
Actually we still had so many
stories to tell, but in short, this journey was very impressive. MELTA respects
LIA as the only prominent Languange School in Indonesia. As LIA
representatives, we were treated so special. The hospitality showed by the
Malaysians I met melted the stereotypes we heard of a country that is our close
neighbor as well as our close rival. But what concerns me most are the facts
that now, this close neighbor is more civilized in their transportation (they
have subway/ MRT and less motorcycle on the streets), and far more advanced in
their education (MELTA –unlike TEFLIN - is fully supported by the government
and royal member). The two things that we still can only dream of here in our
beloved mis-managed country.
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